


The End, and What Happens After

by JinnIsFinanciallyFailing



Category: The Centricide (Webseries)
Genre: AU, Commie mourns, Commie pursues the real threat, Everyone is Dead, Existential Themes, Im too scared to put this as a dark tower work, Inspired by The Dark Tower series by Stephen King, Other, but anyway whatever, combining your two favorite fandoms that have nothing to do with each other go brrr, the dark tower AU, what happens after a leftist revolution, what happens after killing your anarchist lover, what happens after the fall of ancapistan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29002410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JinnIsFinanciallyFailing/pseuds/JinnIsFinanciallyFailing
Summary: The Revolution succeeded, Ancapistan had fallen, but with great bloodshed.  Commie pursues the true man behind it all, as he pursues his own damning thoughts.
Relationships: mentioned past Leftist Unity
Kudos: 7





	The End, and What Happens After

The man in black fled across the desert, and the Communist followed.

The sun overhead leered upon the statist with clear contempt as he trekked through the unforgiving sand on this new and unforgiving landscape, never breaking stride, never breaking pace. His forlorn pace that left behind a thousand terrible thoughts deep in his ephemeral footprints. His constant pace that carried him along with his internal baggage that could never be returned. But he still kept his pace, and still kept on.

The cloaked man, that damned creature was out of sight, but Commie could sense that he was only a few miles ahead of him, judging by the disturbed sand ahead of his feet. He had incredible stamina, but then again he had a good head start. This seemed to turn a cog in his worn and battered mind, and after a while, he broke into a trot, despite his deadened legs' screams of protest. His shoelaces clinked forebodingly against the metal circlets of his boots, keeping the time with a dum dida chik.

His guns rested in his scarred and scabbed hands and felt cool to his blistered skin. These guns, these same guns that had gunned down pig-headed capitalists, the ones that had saved Ancom from Ape-Political, and the ones that caused his own brand of destruction that he was currently fleeing from. He held them like there was no tomorrow, only that there legitimately might not be. He remembered him mocking Ancap about his fear of losing everything, thinking him greedy and cruel. He looked at himself now, who literally had lost everything. And it was his own fault, his own damn fault.

Fate has a wicked sense of humor sometimes.

He could stop and rest, he had to, didn't he? His brain didn't seem to think so, as he tripped over yet another piece of driftwood, despite its emptiness the desert seemed to have a lot of those. He could, he had to if he didn't want to die of exhaustion or exposure. His legs were about to have some beauty rest and buckled underneath of the statist, sending Commie sprawling out onto the red hot sand. 

He needed it, he needed the rest so bad. Rest...rest... his legs seemed to say as they ached even more beneath him. His body felt like shutting down completely, why should it keep functioning? Why should it keep functioning when facing him was hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles, of eons of unforgiving sand. Commie's thoughts wandered back to the man in black, his laughter, his mocking laughter as he watched everything Commie loved to up in flames. No....no...

The statist screamed at himself finally as he scrambled back to his feet in a fraction of a second. He wouldn't admit defeat, he couldn't. At this he continued across the desert at an even faster pace than before. No, he wouldn't give up, he wouldn't die, he had to do this. He had to do this for his sake, for everyone's sake.

All the innocent people he had murdered. For their sake.

Commie felt himself start to cry, mingling with the dried blood that was already on his face at the time. He quickly wiped them away as looked far into the distance at the already dimming horizon. The sun was still unforgiving however, as it continues to beat down on Commie like never before. At this, the statist paused, and looked behind him into the distance. 

~~

"I don't understand," Ancap has once said to him shortly after the Centricide. They were in the extremist house waiting for Jreg to give his congrats. Nazi was out celebrating on his own with Anfash and Hoppean, probably swearing at minorities, worshipping Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, whatever those accursed men did. It was unusually cool for an early summer's day. Commie remembered well.

"What don't you understand?" piped up Ancom in common courtesy as qi brought qis cereal bowl to the table. Ancom was definitely in a good mood, as cordialness was rare towards the capitalist from both qim and Commie himself. Ancap looked down at the pile of maps in front of him, and looked back up in clear confusion. 

"The desert up north," he finally said after clearing his throat. He straightened the map and turned it to them and pointed to a spot North of where they were. "Its completely barren...it's useless," he said defeatedly as he flung the map off the table in his usual frustrated manner. He legitimately looked upset, as if he had lost out on a business deal, or had been outbid at an auction. It was a perplexing exclamation that caused ensuing silence.

Ancom looked at him through squinted eyes as if he started speaking Swahili. Qi didn't laugh for some reason, probably still puzzling over Ancap's enigmatic remarks. It was all too much for Commie however, whether it was the victory against the Centrists or the one two many shots of vodka that he had, he burst into hysterics at the anarchist sitting across from him.

"Desert? Desert?! Kulak are you mad?" the statist slurred through his booming Russian accent. His guttural laughter caused Ancom to chuckle and eventually to start laughing hysterically as well, joining in on his chorus. This combination however caused Ancap to look at them both as if he had been hit by a freight train, and looked utterly enraged. He was about to shoot something back when Commie continued.

"Deserts don't exist here kulak! I have no idea what shrooms you're on, but deserts in the middle of an urban region?! Ancap-" his continuing sentence was cut off by another bout of laughter coming from him before being cut off altogether by another man entering the room and glaring at him. The familiar form of Ancap's Libertarian.

"Its true ya know," the Libright said finally after silencing Commie with a glare. He sat down with his coffee next to Ancap before giving his fellow Librights cheek a small peck. He stirred his elixir and continued again looking at Commie through his tired and sunken eyes.

"That desert has been there as long as anyone can remember. It's a marvel that it's here as it is. Ancap and I thought it was a phenomenal business opportunity, just sitting there right before our very eyes. Miles and miles of it-" he paused and sipped his coffee, looking a little dejected. He then pushed back and reached into his robe pocket, bringing out a picture and gesturing it towards Commie. The statist took it and was looking at, was unmistakably a desert.

"That's where it got difficult. Apparently the desert is unexplored, no one knows where it starts or when it ends. Minarchist and I tried to get some business people and their associates to come out and look at it for potential for fracking, but apparently that's also impossible." 

At this Libertarian looked more somber than ever, still reliving this disappointment.

"There's no oil either. Seriously, a desert without fucking oil?! Hundreds upon hundreds of miles of untouched land, and NO GODDAMN OIL."

Libertarian slammed his mug onto the table with an up most frustrated expression before pushing away from the table and going upstairs, and Ancap soon followed. This left Commie and Ancom by themselves looking at one another in clear confusion.

~~

Commie wiped the sweat from his brow as he tripped over his own untied shoelace. He didn't even notice it's frayed state until he bent down to tie it.

That conversation was only a week ago. This but of information seemed to stun him most of all. Only a week ago. He laughed at Ancap at the very thought of a desert, at the very thought of this damning place even being relevant. And here he was, dying of grief, starvation, and exposure.

Again, fate had a wicked sense of humor.

He thought of the Librights and their schemes. He thought of Ancap and Libertarian, their small gestures of affection towards another. How this made Commie sick seeing two capitalists loving each other and not suffering for their greediness.

He got his revenge didn't he? Commie wiped his tears away again. His revenge, their looks of terror as they realized they had no escape. As they realized that the revolutionaries has surrounded the mansion, barricading any possible sliver of a chance of escape. As they realized that those cries of revolution weren't red herrings, weren't sick jokes, until they were huddled helpless against a wall.

Commie's gun was fully loaded. He looked down around the barrel at his prey, the four Librights, those poor unfortunate souls. They were the helpless ones now, they were the ones being trampled on without regret. Commie remembered well.

Hoppean had simply bowed his head, accepting his fate. Minarchist screamed and clutched onto his arm in utter horror and fear. Libertarian said not a word, and wrapped himself around the whimpering Ancap, whispering soothing words of comfort in his ear as the end soon came. Four shots were fired. Just four. And they soon fell silent.

That conversation, the last time Commie saw them alive. Did they know the man across from them were plotting their doom? That their happiness was short lived? Did they even know that they were going to die in a week's time? Did they know? Did they know? Those questions still came back to Commie, even though they were reduced to nothing but dust.

Commie's mind wandered to Ancom's laughter. Ancom's beautiful laughter. His Ancom. Oh how he could give anything to see qim, his love, again. Commie looked at his guns resting in his hands, those accursed weapons. The right one had murdered Ancom. It happened in a beautiful field, the same on where they had confessed their love for each other. Where they had first kissed, Ancom tasted of peppermint. It was nice. He thought of Ancom's face, qis beautiful curled locks falling over qis soulful green eyes. The same face that had been blown apart by the Devastator bullet from behind. Commie's bullet. Did qi know that qis lover was also qis doom? The man whom qi trusted? 

The state had ordered qis death. He had to do it, no questions. At least Ancom died looking at the flowers. The state was cruel, sure. If only Commie knew who the state really was from the start.

Maybe Commie was always meant to be a tool in the hands of the Master Creator. If not him, as Commie had believed, maybe it was the hands of fate, accursed fate. If only Commie knew who he was really a tool of.

And The Man in Black was elusive as ever.

The sun leered overhead more than ever, despite it being late afternoon. Commie had to rest, he had to, he had no choice if he wanted to catch up. He finally forced himself to sit on the remains of an old log nearby, his thoughts still raging in his brain. The Man in Black, that man, that man who wasn't even a man at all, has to be nearby. But yet again, Commie had slowed quite a bit. The driftwood was quite abundant now, lying scattered yonder a few feet all around him. It looked like a shipwreck in this sea of sand, not unlike the rubble that he caused that indicated that Ancapistan existed. Those charred remains of those mansions and houses. He was supposed to celebrate this. Celebrate the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in his own eyes. The destruction of the very thing that represented what Commie hated most. 

Oh how he felt the very opposite now. Is this what it meant to be an ideology? To do what you're told? To blindly follow your beliefs?

He blindly followed the state, or what he thought was the state anyway. Fuck the state, Commie had said out loud. Something he never thought in a million years he'd say.

~~

Commie remembered the death, the screams of the people he was supposed to liberate. No..no! This wasn't supposed to happen! What has happened? What has happened? Jreg, you said this wouldn't happen. Commie felt more sorrowful than ever as he kicked a piece of driftwood. You promised...

He had stumbled through the charred wreckage, burning himself in the process. He didn't even notice the bubbling blisters forming on his hands and face as he navigated through the apocalyptic landscape. It was surreal, as he climbed through the remains of what was Ancap's mansion, the sounds of sirens, the sound of a resident outside screaming for the people to bring out their dead, the screams, oh the screams. Commie screamed in return as he approached the extremist house, miraculously untouched. He screamed and begged for Jreg to stop. For the death to stop. Even if it meant his own life to be sacrificed, as he literally sacrificed Ancom like a helpless lamb to the state. Just make it stop. Why did it have to come to this.

He burst through the doors expecting Jreg to be looking bewildered at the destruction He had ordered, he wouldn't have been surprised if he was sadistically gleeful about it, reveling in it even. What he didn't expect to see when he burst through those doors was to see Jreg face down in a pool of blood on the meeting table with his throat slit. Stone cold dead.

This wasn't even much of a shock compared to what happened next. Before Commie could even catch his breath, he noticed a figure behind the corpse that was a live Jreg a few minutes ago. His evil smile was the first thing Commie saw before he even emerged from the shadows, glittering brightly as he leered back at the petrified statist. Commie's fight or flight response was triggered as soon as the cloaked figure slinked into the light, and noticed what looked to be a bloody knife being tucked into his inner pocket. 

Before he could even think, Commie was firing blindly at the Man in Black, barely aware of the bullets flying haphazardly. He soon regained his composure and shot with close precision, most men would've been dead by then, the figure surely should've. But the Man in Black, the accursed Man in Black just laughed, as he raised his hands and the bullets seemed to fly harmlessly past him. He kept laughing at the distraught Commie as he fled through the exit in the back, leaving him alone with nothing but Jreg's corpse.

Commie could barely process what just happened as he ran after him, not before grabbing a piece of paper out of the corner of his eye. What a stupid decision, especially in this situation. He crumpled it and stuffed it in his pocket, gave one last saddened look at Jreg, and fled through the door as well, never looking back.

~~

He remembered that piece of paper, remembered those words as they etched into his brain as soon as he read them. Those words, those eight words. Those right words that singlehandedly took months of work, the purpose of the Centricide, and his wasted broken heart and tossed them meaninglessly into the wind without any further thought.

Commie reached his blistered hand into his pocket and pulled it out, reading over those words again and again. 

"I was deceived, I was misled, forgive me."

That was all, that was all Commie needed. Not like he needed them in the first place. Jreg's final confession, his final confession that proved that the puppet master has fulfilled his purpose. Commie and the others rallied around Jreg as their leader of the Anti-Centrist cause, as their purpose and hope for their future. The same man that had turned on the rest and caused a leftist revolution that turned into an apocalyptic nightmare. And he was only a puppet on a string, a puppet that Commie had blindly followed and became a puppet of a puppet himself. He would've felt sorry for him if he didn't have to sacrifice the love of his life in the process. He thought Jreg was the man behind it all, but no.

The Man in Black, Nyarlathotep, the Man with No Face, lurked evilly. Oh how Commie hated his enigmatic form.

"There were no happy endings. So why must we have someone else pay the price to find out?" came the words of the Nazi in Commie's head. Nazi was always pessimistic, right up to the very end. Commie had ignored him most of the time, rightist opinions didn't mean a thing to him. Nazi was just a fool. 

But oh how right he was.

Commie sighed and wiped the sweat from his brow again. It weirdly seemed like the only thing that kept him from breaking down in tears. He wished he could forget, to just make the pain, both physical and emotional, stop. His memory would be the death of him, as Ancom had once said. No, don't think of Ancom, not right now. At this, he stuffed the note back into his frayed pocket, the words of confession seeming to sear into Commie's hand worse than any burn he had ever endured.

The sun didn't care, the sun didn't care in the least. Commie knew it had no sign of abating until it finally set a few hours from now. He shuffled his tired and worn feet in the sand, which burned his exposed legs to the touch. How long had he been out here in this cruel and unforgiving terrain? Two days? Two weeks? Hell, he wouldn't have been surprised if months had gone by. He needed someone to help him recollect, but he didn't want it. He didn't want those horrific memories to come flooding back again. He didn't want them to come flooding back, just adding to his guilt and regret.

Commie heard screeches overhead and his eyes met with several vultures circling the sky overhead. The undertakers of the skies, the Conservative had once called them. They smelled death, they reeked of death, they knew when death was coming. Commie shouted at the filthy creatures to get lost, but they just circled above him just the same. He sighed.

There was no point anymore. Everyone was dead, the Centricide meant nothing, everything Commie had ever known had been reduced to nothing but microscopic ash drifting freely in a twilight wind. It was surreal, but so unbelievably real at the same time. He could join them in death, he wouldn't be hopelessly alone anymore. Not like Commie believed in an afterlife. But who knows, here he is out in the middle of an unknown desert no one has explored pursuing a man who was someone able to survive an onslaught of bullets completely unscathed. Maybe there was a higher power.

He wanted to see Ancom again, to kiss qim, to beg for forgiveness, to say how sorry he was. He even wanted to see Ancap goddamn it. He never thought that he would say those words, but it was true. He could lay right here on the sand and just die. Die of a mix of a broken heart and exposure. The vultures sensed it afterall as they had been circling Commie for a few minutes now. They would peck and fear flesh from his remains until he was nothing but a bleached skeleton lying in the sand, never to be discovered until another unfortunate soul came across him. But he might see Ancom again, who knows.

Or he could go back. Just go back the way he came. He could go back and start over and build his own communist government like he had always wanted. Like Marx always wanted. No way anyone would accept him however, as they saw a massacre of an entire town right before their very eyes. He could frighten them into submission, something Marx always preached. Commie thought of this for a moment before abandoning it altogether. He's didn't want to be a ruthless murderer, he didn't want to frighten people. He wanted to help them, and he had done just the opposite. Is this what he was always destined to be? An ideology who just parroted beliefs, and has no purpose except to be a preacher saying the same exact things over and over until the end? Did it really have to come to murder? The screams of death and destruction rang in Commie's head. He abruptly stood up, and looked south the way he came. He wouldn't go back. He couldn't. Nothing was left, literally nothing but radiation and ash.

~~

The Hand of God, Commie saw it all. He remembered a few days ago when he was walking across this terrain (so he had only been out here several days, he finally recalled) and could even still smell the burning buildings behind him. The wind was blowing hard that day, scattering sand into his face and burning his squinted eyes. It was high noon, when the sun was at its peak. Commie had trudged through the bare sand as he looked back in time for a blinding light taking him by surprise.

The shockwave sent Commie flying back into the dune he was on, shielding his eyes. The very ground shook violently as he looked back in time to see it. To see the immense mushroom cloud rise high up into the atmosphere, signaling the revolutionaries' plan had actually worked. The Posadist actually detonated the thing. He shielded his eyes again as he felt the ground shake harder than ever, and waited for the heat to die down.

Was the Man in Black responsible for it? Commie wouldn't have been surprised if he was, though it was a little overboard. But again, the cloaked figure had controlled Jreg and his very actions, fooled them all, and slit Jreg's throat. Why couldn't he be responsible for a literal nuclear war head? He had done enough damage as it was. 

Commie envied the Centrists. They had pretty merciful deaths compared to this. Commie personally would've much rather been killed with a blow to the head than be literally vaporized alive. Was it painful to be vaporized? Nazi certainly found out, and so did the Librights. So did the people of the city. So did Ancom. Not like they felt that they were vaporized, as they were already nothing but body parts. Commie for the first time, wanted to be a Centrist. He wanted to have a merciful death, he would even take being vaporized if it meant getting out of this horrific cycle of regret. Maybe Moderate Lee was right. Maybe being a Centrist was truly a blessed way to be. But he was still alive, still alive to suffer. Maybe that's what the Master Creator wanted. Commie shut his eyes. It was probably just what he deserved.

Righteous and unrighteous alike were consumed by that holy fire.

The world had moved on. All the ideologies were dead. And Commie, the last of them, had moved on too.

~~

"You were always a sentimental person, weren't you Commie? Too bad your Ancom didn't get to share that sentiment with you."

The voice of the Man in Black rang in Commie's head as he quickly covered his ears. No, not now. Go away you foul creature. Commie silently thought this as he tried to ignore the jeers that reminded him of all he had done. The Man with No Face however, continued.

"I know you'll pursue me. You are a man of vengeance after all. But you admitting defeat will come soon. The sheer weight of your defeat will come out of you like vomit, like a foul ichor. You'll scream for it to end. Unless, " At this the Man in Black chuckled malevolently. "Unless you're as much of a big man to face fate yourself."

What a laugh that creature had.

"Be damned to you kulak, demon, whatever you are. Be damned and go to hell. You're nothing but an apparition, nothing but a man." Commie snarled these words as he got back up again and continued on. Nothing would stop him, he would pursue the Man in Black, he wouldn't die. He couldn't die.

"I'm so much more than a man Commie, " the Man with No Face slyly said. "I'm much more than a man, than an ideology. I don't subscribe to your constant beratings of philosophy. I'm much more than that. I DO things. Things you could hardly even comprehend, let alone do yourself.". He laughed again, as if he was in on a secret that Commie wasn't.

Commie shook his head violently and waited for him to continue, but to his relief and surprise, he did not. Not a word more. The haze in his ears stopped, and his head felt clear and sharp again. The sun he noticed wasn't so unbearable now, in fact it felt cooler. It was darker too. Commie looked up and saw the sun beginning to set below the horizon. Hell, he had been walking with almost no rest for hours. He clutched his guns even tighter in his hands as he examined the pinkish sky. Those guns had become his lifeblood. 

The stars dotted the sky, adding to the swirling galaxies upon galaxies unlike what Commie had ever seen before. He looked down at the sand. He had seen something like this before, but never this awe inspiring. Ancom would've loved it.

Ancom. His beloved Ancom always loved sunsets. They would go and see them every so often, after their meetings on the Centricide. Commie remembered one night in particular, one where the sky was almost this beautiful. It was shortly after Ancom came back from the Polycule. When Commie's heart came back together and felt complete. They had kissed and lied in the flowers in the meadow, the same one that would be stained with Ancom's own blood. They had whispered soothing words to each other as they watched the dimming sun light the flowers with a beautiful and firey orange, and Ancom had commented how beautiful it was.

They were happy in that blissful place. Nothing remained accept their love.

Commie wiped the tears away from his face for what seemed like the hundredth time today, still reliving this scene. It had been beautiful. I'm so sorry Ancom, I'm so sorry. 

Love was gone, bliss was gone. Only penance, the future, and the sheer unknown remained. Commie didn't know what lay ahead, he could only look forward. Whether there was a final battle, or just simple closure, he didn't know. The Man in Black was his destination, he would lead him to his destination. That's all that mattered, nothing else. The world had moved on, and Commie had too.

If that's what he had to do, he'd do it. If that's what he was meant for, he would follow it. It was better than being meant for nothing at all. The Master Creator wasn't kind. Commie looked in front of him, and peered through his bleary eyes out onto to the unabating terrain. The journey might be long, it might end tomorrow, again he didn't know. All he knew was that it was going to be difficult.

The Man in Black, Nyarlathotep, Death himself would make sure of that. Commie could almost hear his gleeful laughter already.

Commie opened his coat, and took out his Bible. The Bible that was the Communist Manifesto. It was an old battered copy, but it served him nevertheless. He had read the thing too many times to count, he knew the words, he knew it's very pages. The thing was the whole epitome of his existence.

He slowly took it out of his jacket and examined the cover. Marx's name was cut off by the ripped corner, and Engel's name was so worn that it was almost unrecognizable. Those names Commie had revered. He took the book, scanned it one last time, raised it high over his head, and threw it into the sand dune behind him. He watched it soar and land soundlessly in the sand, and watched it quiver a bit before sinking down into its depths, Marx's name the last to go. 

This wasn't about ideology anymore, this wasn't about his identity anymore. He had nothing to lose, and Marx's words certainly wouldn't help. Commie looked up and out in front of him yet again, and thought he could see a dark silhouette disappear behind a tall dune. There he was.

The Man in Black was close.

Commie imagined Ancom and qis beautiful self one last time. He tried to imagine qis touch, qis warmth, qis lips upon his. One last moment of bliss before he pursued his fate into the beyond.

And finally he went. He had accepted his fate. Whatever it took, whatever it takes.

He followed the elusive Man in Black into the starry horizon, leaving his decaying world behind. Leaving his former life behind, and into the setting sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Based off Stephen King's The Gunslinger. I thought of this at 3 am and decided why not write this. Combining my two favorite fandoms go brrr :')
> 
> This legit the first fanfic I've ever been truly proud of. I can't believe I spent 3 hours on this.
> 
> Pls comment cuz this is only my second work, sorry if I sound too needy :')
> 
> Also why you no let me use italics AO3 >:(


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